Understanding evolution of dominant bacteria inhabiting the rodent gut

肠道微生物组是动物健康和免疫功能的核心，但我们对这一重要的共生生态系统是如何进化的还不完全了解。通过从历史的角度来接近这一知识差距，并使用实时观察，该项目将解决肠道社区如何与啮齿动物宿主一起进化，以及该社区的成员如何应对新的选择压力。这些发现的意义在于它们能够告知我们对宿主和微生物之间关系的理解，不仅在一个关键的模型系统中，而且通过外推到其他宿主-微生物系统。

The gut microbiome is central to animal health and immune function, however we have an incomplete understanding of how this important symbiotic ecosystem evolved. By approaching this knowledge gap from a historical perspective and using real-time observation, this project will address how the gut community evolved with the rodent host and how members of that community respond to new selective pressures. The significance of these findings is in their capacity to inform our understanding of the relationship between host and microbe, not only within a key model system, but by extrapolation to other host-microbe systems.